Attending the MFA show at one of the Bay Area's large art schools is like getting bludgeoned by art. After about a half-dozen presentations I am full, my critical faculties have been short-circuited and I have been forced into submission. Think about it, at any given group show, you might see one or two pieces from (at the most) twenty artists. Or on any Art Murmur or First Thursday outing, you might visit five or ten solo shows.
Read the restPosted on Monday, April 29, 2013 by Allison Byers
For the third year, Giorgio Armani is sponsoring Paris Photo, which is being held this weekend in Los Angeles for the first time, at Paramount Studios. At the fair, the brand has installed the “ACQUA #3” exhibition, a collection of unpublished photographs taken by the photographer Jim Goldberg in Haiti. Gold is a professor of Art at the California College of the Arts* and a member of Magnum Photos.
Read the restPosted on Thursday, April 25, 2013 by Allison Byers
Todd Hido is not your average photographer. The art photos he does have a life of their own. Hido uses his still camera like a movie camera but he only keeps the one scene that defines the entire “movie”. His work is a reflection of the lost “American Dream” that left with the 50’s with an emphasis on the alienation and fracturing of suburban America. His is the stuff of noir films and pulp fiction.
Read the restPosted on Thursday, March 28, 2013 by Allison Byers
The NYU-educated photographer, who recently moved to San Francisco to pursue her MFA in Photography and MA in Visual and Critical Studies at the California College of the Arts, has been walking behind those ancient walls for over a year now, with just her Mamiya RB67 medium-format film camera in hand.
Read the restPosted on Friday, March 15, 2013 by Allison Byers
A National Guard facility. A professional boxing venue. A Star Wars shooting location. And now, most recently, a massive online fetish porn factory. The San Francisco Armory has a history befitting its Moorish, lost-in-time exterior. It’s also the backdrop of photographer Elizabeth Moran’s porn-sans-porn photo project, The Armory.
Read the restPosted on Thursday, December 13, 2012 by Matthew Harrison Tedford
Amanda Marsalis's (Photography 2001) photographs appear regularly on glossy pages across international newsstands. She shoots both editorial and advertising photography, and her clients have included Apple, FedEx, GQ, the New York Times Magazine, Vogue, and many other household names.
It is global in reach, but she describes her style as Californian, owing much to her home state.
Read the restPosted on Monday, October 8, 2012 by Clay Walsh
Congratulations to all the student finalists in CCA’s third annual R.A.W. Photo (real artists @ work) contest, which featured the theme “I Belong at CCA.”
Contestants were challenged to submit images that depict a project, moment, mood, or other quality of CCA life taken from a student perspective. As expected, the results were as varying as the students themselves!
Read the restPosted on Thursday, September 27, 2012 by Allison Byers
Although a photographer’s process is integral to his/her work, it is often a carefully guarded secret. Most photographers tend to keep the development of their work to themselves, sometimes choosing to seek counsel only from a small circle of trusted friends.
It comes as a surprise, then, to find Magnum photographer Jim Goldberg’s reworked sketches, videos and maquettes of his groundbreaking books openly shared online.
Read the restPosted on Friday, September 14, 2012 by Allison Byers
Magnum photographer Jim Goldberg’s in-depth collaborations with marginalized subjects have had a lasting influence on visual artist Hank Willis Thomas.
“He was the first person who I got to know as a student, who was working with photography and text,” says Thomas, who studied with Goldberg at the California College of the Arts in Oakland.
Read the restPosted on Thursday, September 13, 2012 by Lindsey Westbrook
Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel
D.A.P, 2012
Hardcover, 264 pages, $70
The artistic collaboration between Larry Sultan (1946-2009), longtime member of CCA's Photography faculty, and Mike Mandel began in 1972. Over 30 years they created 20 photographic projects, including the landmark book Evidence; exhibitions; the film JPL; three public commissions; and 12 billboard series displayed throughout California and the continental U.S. They evolved a seemingly authorless style; most of their works adapted found imagery from archives or from popular media, neutralizing the intended commercial or documentary content by uncovering and emphasizing the inherent banality. This substantial overview surveys Sultan and Mandel's three-decade collaboration. Five critical essays provide valuable insights.
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